The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-01-29
HUCKLEBERRY TIME.
THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THE
MOUNTAINS AND PICK BERRIES.


GOtham's Particular Weakness-On the
HuckIeberry Grounds - The Pickers'
Powers of Endurance Big Days
wOrk-A PeriIous Ride.
If New York city folks have one par
ticular weakness it is a fondness for
huckleberries and, Notwithstanding
thousands of New York city folks spend
the months of July and August out of the
city, enough remain at home to consume
10000 bushels of huckleberries, which are
picked on the mountains of northern
Pennsylvania and New Jersey and south
ern New York. This does not include the
large shipments from points in the east
ern states and from others further west.
Probably in no locality in the country do
huckleberries of all varieties grow in
greater profusion or of better quality
than they do in this wild mountain region
from which New York draws 1t is no
uncommon thing for the united work of
family to bring them in $40 day for
every day the season lasts, which will be
seventy days on an average. That is more
than the head OF the family, at his usual
labor as chopper, bark-peeler, tfe-cutter
or the like, could earn in year and a half
of hard work. One season in the buckle
berry woods has given many family the
means to purchase a snug little farm or
set them up in other business
UP THE MOUNTAIN PATHS
Atsunrise every morning, from the time
the season opens until it closes, the pickers
gather in crops at their various rendez-
vous and from there hurry up the noun
tain paths before the sun is high. The
stronger of the pickers carry pine box,
which holds a bushel strapped to their
shoulders. Children carry baskets and
pals, which hold from ten to twelve
quarts In northern Monroe county,
Pennsylvania, or the PoconO mountains,
the huckleberry crop is handled almost
entirely by one man, Thomas MerWine.
Thousands of acres are picked over by
those who sell him their berries, and he
carries scores of his pickers to the bowers
in large wagons, which in turn carry the
berries to the town at the end of the day.
The berry grounds are entirely bare of
timber and the pickers are exposed all
day, not only to the scorching rays of the
sun, but to dry and suffOcating heat
that rises from the rocks and bushes.
There are numerous cool retreats among
the ravines and patches of woods where
there are lakes and springs, but the pick
ers waste no time in their refreshing COM
panionship They are picking for profit,
from their work to eat a lunch or get a
drink in some cool place are all they can
afford to spare. The skill and rapidity
with which boxes and baskets are filled
by the huckleberry picllers and the power
of endurance manifested by the women
and children on the hot barrens and in
carrying home the results of their days
work, are truly marvellous.
A BIG DAYS WORK.
1t is frequent occurrence for these
Pike county female mountaineers to go
out to the barrens in the morning, pick
all the berries they can carry, walk ten
miles with them to the station, sell them,
and walk back home again the same day.
Sometimes they are accompanied by three
or four wild looking children, each bear
ing its family stock in trade. These peo-
ple1usually take the price of their berries
out in "store goods" the purchaser of the
berries being the village storekeeper.
The abandoning of the gravity or in
clinedsplane railway of the Penns ylvania
Coal company between the coal mines of
that company and the Erie railway at
HawIey, Pa, was this season a great
blow to the hucklebeTry pickers of the
MoosiC mountains. The wives and children
of coal miners and others employed about
the mines make up the army of berry
pickers in that region. The long trains of
coal cars that climbed the mountains by
the gravity system formerly offered
quick although dangerous medium Of
reaching the berry barrens. Women and
children by the score chung to the sides
of the narrow cars, standing on the mar
row board that ran along the edge, and
holding on with one hand while they
chung to the ir baskets with the other.
There was great peril in the ride, as the
train dashed through narrow rock cuts,
with but little space on either side of the
track, along the face of high cliffs and
around the sharpest OF curves; but the
berry-pickers took all the risks of the
trip, as it landed them in the heart of the
localities where their work for the day
brought them in money of which they
stood in need.-New York World.